So I run a dinner club where we go to a different cuisine each week, because I found out that the long tail in San Francisco is simply just so much longer than a lot of people think!
There’s Eritrean food at New Eritrea, Chamorro(Guamanian) at Prebechu, amazing Afghan food and surprisingly the cheapest beer in the city at Helmand, Mongolian food at Naadam Mongolian, Chinese Peruvian at Cantoo, Uzbek at Sofiya, Nicaraguan at Nicaraguense, Laotian at Lao Table, Syrian food at Palmyra, Tunisian food at Gola, Hungarian at Paprika, and Algerian at Kayma, and even more! Literally whatever cuisine you want is probably somewhere in the city.
As a starving grad student in SF, fine eateries of the sort mentioned above were sadly out of reach.
But in provincial Marin County, a mere half hour north of the City--and sadly not mentioned even in passing by our worldly Economist--there are some fine, affordable, French eateries:
I really enjoyed this list. I’m glad you said what you said about the size factor, I’ve always found it so silly to compare SF 1:1 to NYC or LA. SF has a strong A-team imo, the best spots could hang anywhere, but there’s also a lot of overhyped places which (due to the size factor) makes it seem like they’re all overhyped.
Excited to read about Part 2. Here’s some of my recs for the next 90% of SF restaurants you have yet to explore:
Pizza - I’ve live down the street from Tony’s Pizza for almost 10 years so I’m extremely biased, but also I’ve had a front-row seat to their really impressive consistency. After trying almost everything, my go-to order is the Ricotta Stuffed Squash Blossom appetizer, the El Jefe Pizza (carnitas, plantains, habanero and orange mist), and the coal-fired New Yorker. The line isn’t even that bad, just do the mobile waitlist. Il Casaro is also very good. Golden Boy is super overrated and not worth the line.
Sandwiches: Little Vine has a fantastic sandwich that most people overlook for Molinari (which is fair given the eggplant parm). Lucca’s Deli in the Marina, Sandy’s in Haight, and Dolores Deluxe are my other go-tos.
Mexican - La Vaca Birria in the mission is my pick for the best burrito, over all the classics. El Buen Comer is my pick for the best Mexican sit down, with red mole worthy of Oaxaca City.
Chinese - Four Kings is my favorite of the ones you listed, although I actually don’t get the squab and go for the beef chow fun + other specials. The fried rabbit they had for a while was divine. Otherwise agree with what you’re saying about the mediocrity.
Korean - San Ho Won IMO is worth the hype for a semi-fancy dinner and Sohn has a great breakfast sandwich.
Vietnamese - next on your list should be Le Soleil in the inner richmond, I still think about the curried short rib on a daily basis.
Sushi - Kuma in nob hill is my pick for the best in the city (almost as good as Mujiri in Oakland).
Middle Eastern - I actually think the entire Bay Area is really lacking in this department. LA and NYC absolutely embarrass the Bay Area when it comes to this cuisine. I haven’t been impressed by any of the hot names.
Nepalese - Yarsa in North Beach does a killer cashew almond curry, which I got by accident once and is now one of my favorite Nepalese dishes in the city. Otherwise, I go back to my hometown of sunnyvale when I want Indian food, shout out Surmai.
Crafty Fox (beer bar in the mission) has the best French fries in the city.
I hate to say it, but I find them mid. I’ve tried a lot of the popular middle eastern spots in the bay and I’m consistently underwhelmed. Mazra in Redwood City is the only one I truly love so far
The best restaurant that I ate at in San Francisco was back in the early in the 1990s when I worked there. It was a Vietnamese hole in the wall that was dark and dingy and hot and smoky but had a five-spice chicken plate for $8 that was amazing. It was called Cordon Bleu and it was tucked in on California near Polk. Next time I visit SF I’ll see if it’s still there, because the other restaurant I really want to try is the Swan Oyster Depot which is nearby.
This is an incredibly impressive list, thank you for sharing!
SF's Chinese food scene frustrates me greatly because it should be so much better than it is. In terms of diversity and quality it just gets obliterated by Flushing in NYC. Why on earth are the only good hot pot restaurants on the west side of the city, and why are they all kinda mediocre? We should have absurdly large dim sum cart places like NYC does, and more regional Chinese cuisines like Fujian.
OK, some more recs for your next 90%, from a West Portal resident who also wishes Khao Tiew would raise its prices:
Elena's is still hard to get into, but not as hard as it used to be, and not as hard as Khao Tiew, and if you want upscale Mexican with great cocktails, it's really solid.
Underrated Italian places include Sociale in Pac Heights, Che Fico on Divis (sadly closed at the moment due to a fire), Gold Mirror on Taraval, and 54 Mint in Soma.
For Chinese, the dry-fried chicken wings at San Tung are as good as everyone says, if you can brave the line, and Sichuan Home on Geary is great too, and there are a bunch of dumpling-and-pancake places on Taraval (House of Pancakes, Kingdom of Dumpling, Dumpling Kitchen) worth a visit. In general Taraval is an underrated food street (see also Gold Mirror, King of Thai Noodle, and I'm probably forgetting some more faves).
For omakase, I really like Nakama Sushi in Hayes Valley and Ebisu in the Sunset, though your standards may differ. But actually I think a cut above either of those is Ichika Sushi House down in Brisbane, not technically in the SF city limits but very close.
When you explore the Embarcadero/FiDi area, try Alora, Prospect, Wayfare Tavern, and Boulevard.
These spots are not restaurants, but the Macao-style egg tarts at Mr. Bread and the meat-filled Vietnamese puff pastry (paté chaud) a few blocks up the hill at California Bakery are hole-in-the-wall spots worth remembering. We can't eat out every night! (can we)?
Thanks for the great guide! I love San Franciscos food scene. I agree about NY and Japan being a little better. I think part of the trick in those places is that they are more walkable with more density. A bad restaurant can’t last in NYC because there are dozens within a few blocks and these are also within a few blocks of where many people live. SF is a little more spread out and many of the neighborhoods don’t have a lot of choices.
Is that photo from Robin really chu-toro nigiri sushi with ¿grated Parmesan furikake? I was hoping the Korean Barbecue trend of adding cheese to traditional food wouldn’t hit Japanese food so soon (and, no, a Philadelphia salmon roll isn’t actually considered sushi).
Back in 2006 or so I had a blog called foodwinesex.com. It was early days and far easier to get respect. Nothing like today. Back then I focused primarily on high-end dining, especially international dining. I started by setting a goal...the 3-star Michelins in NY and the Top 100 restaurants in SF as listed by Michael Bauer. I ended up with 93 of the top 100 and did the NY spots. Times have changed. Now it seems that there are so many opinions but little in the way of standards. When the SF Chronicle lists a bakery above Californios I stop reading.
One of the issues I see is not just standardization on what makes a good restaurant but also restaurant consistency. Last year the best Chinese meal I had was at Four Kings. This year the worst Chinese meal I had was at Four Kings. The worst Chinese meal I had last year was at Happy Crane. Knowing their reputation I have to believe I had an off night. Just this week I had a disaster of a meal at Esme despite waiting months to get in.
I still travel to eat. I study the details...what makes a restaurant in Tokyo or San Sebastian great. I wonder if places like El Bulli, Sukiyabashi Jiro, Etxabarri, Lung King Heen or Miramar had off nights. It seems that they are built not just on innovation or technique but perhaps most of all, consistency....dedication to excellence and not just hype or cool.
Anyway, this piece is just terrific...thorough, rationally opinionated and hunger inducing. Thanks.
I lived right next to El Gallo Giro for a few years, and two blocks from Taqueria Vallarta and El Metate. Those are all fantastic, and the carnitas at El Gallo Giro is maybe the single thing I miss most about living in SF. Still, I think La Taq is better than any of those, though that doesn't make it always worth the wait. I do overall think LA has better Mexican food, but SF is quite good.
I wish you had posted this earlier! I just changed clients, but used to travel to SF somewhat regularly. I was always put up near the city center and couldn't expense taxis, but I was always willing to walk up to 1.5 hours to see the city and try a restaurant. I think what makes the food scene 'bad' in SF is that the success rate is so low.
In a great food city you go for a short walk, use the typically indicators to select a restaurant, and you end up with a good if not great experience. SF does have good food, but you really have to search and you end up with a lot of disappointment.
The Korean food is particularly bad. In a city like Atlanta you can randomly select a Korean restaurant in the suburbs and it will be either good or amazing, its rarely a disappointment.
Your call out of the tenderloin is ironic, after about a year and having walked most neighbors I became less motivated to explore with so many bad experiences that my default was Vietnamese in the loin.
Appreciate the list, if I'm ever back in the city this will help make for a much better experience.
I can’t say enough good things about this place. It will sound like I’m a shill, but I swear I’m not a shill. It has all the vibes of a chain or franchise operation, but as far as I can tell, it’s just the one location. Which is disappointing because I live about 20 miles down the peninsula so it’s not easy to get to. Hot dogs, burgers, shakes and a full bar. Nothing fancy and nothing I’d normally go out of my way to find, but man is it good. Normally you can’t pay me to eat kale. But my wife twisted my arm to try a bite of her kale salad and… god damn. Just south of the ballpark across the 3rd Street bridge.
Benu.
A bit underwhelming? Took my son here for his birthday a few months ago. I dig the minimalist design and the jazz vinyl they play by the reception desk. The staff is delightfully laid back and unpretentious. The food is… okay. Had a dish with cod roe, which was followed by a dish featuring sperm of sea bream. I had no choice but to make the requisite dad joke about the possibility that there was now some unholy fish hybrid gestating in my belly. The waiter, who had doubtlessly already heard some variation of this joke nine times that evening, replied that he was not a marine biologist and therefore could neither confirm nor deny my pregnancy concerns.
Lazy Bear.
Worth it for their homemade butter alone. Sure, the food is great, of course it is. But the butter… this is a place where you actually do just want to fill up on bread.
House Of Nanking.
Been going there since before it was cool! Is it still cool anymore? I have no idea. But Noah is correct that most Chinatown restaurants are mediocre at best. House of Nanking is an exception.
Japantown in general.
Some pretty decent holes in the wall. Nothing fantastic, but decent. I lived in Japan in the mid-90s and miss it dearly. Everyone should experience at least one Hokkaido winter. SF Japantown is like methadone. Nowhere near as good as the real thing, but takes the edge off. Worth a visit just for Soko Hardware (not a restaurant, an actual hardware store) just across Post Street from the awesome brutalist concrete pagoda pavilion. If you’re serious about pruning shears and woodcraft, this is store is the promised land.
When you do get over to SoMa, make sure to check out Hamburguesa Bar—relatively cheap, fun vibes, and, most importantly, a great burger. Nothing better than leaving the office early and grabbing a burger and a beer at the bar. Their sister restaurant Pie Punks is down the street, the pizza is good (if not amazing) but the vibe is fun and sometimes that makes up for food that may merely be "very good".
So I run a dinner club where we go to a different cuisine each week, because I found out that the long tail in San Francisco is simply just so much longer than a lot of people think!
There’s Eritrean food at New Eritrea, Chamorro(Guamanian) at Prebechu, amazing Afghan food and surprisingly the cheapest beer in the city at Helmand, Mongolian food at Naadam Mongolian, Chinese Peruvian at Cantoo, Uzbek at Sofiya, Nicaraguan at Nicaraguense, Laotian at Lao Table, Syrian food at Palmyra, Tunisian food at Gola, Hungarian at Paprika, and Algerian at Kayma, and even more! Literally whatever cuisine you want is probably somewhere in the city.
As a starving grad student in SF, fine eateries of the sort mentioned above were sadly out of reach.
But in provincial Marin County, a mere half hour north of the City--and sadly not mentioned even in passing by our worldly Economist--there are some fine, affordable, French eateries:
In Sausalito: Le Garage
In San Rafael: Le Comptoir
+1 on Prubechu
I really enjoyed this list. I’m glad you said what you said about the size factor, I’ve always found it so silly to compare SF 1:1 to NYC or LA. SF has a strong A-team imo, the best spots could hang anywhere, but there’s also a lot of overhyped places which (due to the size factor) makes it seem like they’re all overhyped.
Excited to read about Part 2. Here’s some of my recs for the next 90% of SF restaurants you have yet to explore:
Pizza - I’ve live down the street from Tony’s Pizza for almost 10 years so I’m extremely biased, but also I’ve had a front-row seat to their really impressive consistency. After trying almost everything, my go-to order is the Ricotta Stuffed Squash Blossom appetizer, the El Jefe Pizza (carnitas, plantains, habanero and orange mist), and the coal-fired New Yorker. The line isn’t even that bad, just do the mobile waitlist. Il Casaro is also very good. Golden Boy is super overrated and not worth the line.
Sandwiches: Little Vine has a fantastic sandwich that most people overlook for Molinari (which is fair given the eggplant parm). Lucca’s Deli in the Marina, Sandy’s in Haight, and Dolores Deluxe are my other go-tos.
Mexican - La Vaca Birria in the mission is my pick for the best burrito, over all the classics. El Buen Comer is my pick for the best Mexican sit down, with red mole worthy of Oaxaca City.
Chinese - Four Kings is my favorite of the ones you listed, although I actually don’t get the squab and go for the beef chow fun + other specials. The fried rabbit they had for a while was divine. Otherwise agree with what you’re saying about the mediocrity.
Korean - San Ho Won IMO is worth the hype for a semi-fancy dinner and Sohn has a great breakfast sandwich.
Vietnamese - next on your list should be Le Soleil in the inner richmond, I still think about the curried short rib on a daily basis.
Sushi - Kuma in nob hill is my pick for the best in the city (almost as good as Mujiri in Oakland).
Middle Eastern - I actually think the entire Bay Area is really lacking in this department. LA and NYC absolutely embarrass the Bay Area when it comes to this cuisine. I haven’t been impressed by any of the hot names.
Nepalese - Yarsa in North Beach does a killer cashew almond curry, which I got by accident once and is now one of my favorite Nepalese dishes in the city. Otherwise, I go back to my hometown of sunnyvale when I want Indian food, shout out Surmai.
Crafty Fox (beer bar in the mission) has the best French fries in the city.
Thanks!!
With respect to Middle Eastern have you tried Beit Rima in the Castro?
I hate to say it, but I find them mid. I’ve tried a lot of the popular middle eastern spots in the bay and I’m consistently underwhelmed. Mazra in Redwood City is the only one I truly love so far
The best restaurant that I ate at in San Francisco was back in the early in the 1990s when I worked there. It was a Vietnamese hole in the wall that was dark and dingy and hot and smoky but had a five-spice chicken plate for $8 that was amazing. It was called Cordon Bleu and it was tucked in on California near Polk. Next time I visit SF I’ll see if it’s still there, because the other restaurant I really want to try is the Swan Oyster Depot which is nearby.
I'll try Cordon Bleu! It's not that far from me.
This is an incredibly impressive list, thank you for sharing!
SF's Chinese food scene frustrates me greatly because it should be so much better than it is. In terms of diversity and quality it just gets obliterated by Flushing in NYC. Why on earth are the only good hot pot restaurants on the west side of the city, and why are they all kinda mediocre? We should have absurdly large dim sum cart places like NYC does, and more regional Chinese cuisines like Fujian.
OK, some more recs for your next 90%, from a West Portal resident who also wishes Khao Tiew would raise its prices:
Elena's is still hard to get into, but not as hard as it used to be, and not as hard as Khao Tiew, and if you want upscale Mexican with great cocktails, it's really solid.
Underrated Italian places include Sociale in Pac Heights, Che Fico on Divis (sadly closed at the moment due to a fire), Gold Mirror on Taraval, and 54 Mint in Soma.
For Chinese, the dry-fried chicken wings at San Tung are as good as everyone says, if you can brave the line, and Sichuan Home on Geary is great too, and there are a bunch of dumpling-and-pancake places on Taraval (House of Pancakes, Kingdom of Dumpling, Dumpling Kitchen) worth a visit. In general Taraval is an underrated food street (see also Gold Mirror, King of Thai Noodle, and I'm probably forgetting some more faves).
For omakase, I really like Nakama Sushi in Hayes Valley and Ebisu in the Sunset, though your standards may differ. But actually I think a cut above either of those is Ichika Sushi House down in Brisbane, not technically in the SF city limits but very close.
When you explore the Embarcadero/FiDi area, try Alora, Prospect, Wayfare Tavern, and Boulevard.
These spots are not restaurants, but the Macao-style egg tarts at Mr. Bread and the meat-filled Vietnamese puff pastry (paté chaud) a few blocks up the hill at California Bakery are hole-in-the-wall spots worth remembering. We can't eat out every night! (can we)?
Thanks so much!
Thanks for the great guide! I love San Franciscos food scene. I agree about NY and Japan being a little better. I think part of the trick in those places is that they are more walkable with more density. A bad restaurant can’t last in NYC because there are dozens within a few blocks and these are also within a few blocks of where many people live. SF is a little more spread out and many of the neighborhoods don’t have a lot of choices.
Is that photo from Robin really chu-toro nigiri sushi with ¿grated Parmesan furikake? I was hoping the Korean Barbecue trend of adding cheese to traditional food wouldn’t hit Japanese food so soon (and, no, a Philadelphia salmon roll isn’t actually considered sushi).
It's grated truffle
This is, in a word, excellent.
Back in 2006 or so I had a blog called foodwinesex.com. It was early days and far easier to get respect. Nothing like today. Back then I focused primarily on high-end dining, especially international dining. I started by setting a goal...the 3-star Michelins in NY and the Top 100 restaurants in SF as listed by Michael Bauer. I ended up with 93 of the top 100 and did the NY spots. Times have changed. Now it seems that there are so many opinions but little in the way of standards. When the SF Chronicle lists a bakery above Californios I stop reading.
One of the issues I see is not just standardization on what makes a good restaurant but also restaurant consistency. Last year the best Chinese meal I had was at Four Kings. This year the worst Chinese meal I had was at Four Kings. The worst Chinese meal I had last year was at Happy Crane. Knowing their reputation I have to believe I had an off night. Just this week I had a disaster of a meal at Esme despite waiting months to get in.
I still travel to eat. I study the details...what makes a restaurant in Tokyo or San Sebastian great. I wonder if places like El Bulli, Sukiyabashi Jiro, Etxabarri, Lung King Heen or Miramar had off nights. It seems that they are built not just on innovation or technique but perhaps most of all, consistency....dedication to excellence and not just hype or cool.
Anyway, this piece is just terrific...thorough, rationally opinionated and hunger inducing. Thanks.
I lived right next to El Gallo Giro for a few years, and two blocks from Taqueria Vallarta and El Metate. Those are all fantastic, and the carnitas at El Gallo Giro is maybe the single thing I miss most about living in SF. Still, I think La Taq is better than any of those, though that doesn't make it always worth the wait. I do overall think LA has better Mexican food, but SF is quite good.
I wish you had posted this earlier! I just changed clients, but used to travel to SF somewhat regularly. I was always put up near the city center and couldn't expense taxis, but I was always willing to walk up to 1.5 hours to see the city and try a restaurant. I think what makes the food scene 'bad' in SF is that the success rate is so low.
In a great food city you go for a short walk, use the typically indicators to select a restaurant, and you end up with a good if not great experience. SF does have good food, but you really have to search and you end up with a lot of disappointment.
The Korean food is particularly bad. In a city like Atlanta you can randomly select a Korean restaurant in the suburbs and it will be either good or amazing, its rarely a disappointment.
Your call out of the tenderloin is ironic, after about a year and having walked most neighbors I became less motivated to explore with so many bad experiences that my default was Vietnamese in the loin.
Appreciate the list, if I'm ever back in the city this will help make for a much better experience.
Imperial rolls at Tu Lan. Best meal in town for 5 bucks or less (at least pre-inflation, IDK what they cost now).
Quik Dog.
I can’t say enough good things about this place. It will sound like I’m a shill, but I swear I’m not a shill. It has all the vibes of a chain or franchise operation, but as far as I can tell, it’s just the one location. Which is disappointing because I live about 20 miles down the peninsula so it’s not easy to get to. Hot dogs, burgers, shakes and a full bar. Nothing fancy and nothing I’d normally go out of my way to find, but man is it good. Normally you can’t pay me to eat kale. But my wife twisted my arm to try a bite of her kale salad and… god damn. Just south of the ballpark across the 3rd Street bridge.
Benu.
A bit underwhelming? Took my son here for his birthday a few months ago. I dig the minimalist design and the jazz vinyl they play by the reception desk. The staff is delightfully laid back and unpretentious. The food is… okay. Had a dish with cod roe, which was followed by a dish featuring sperm of sea bream. I had no choice but to make the requisite dad joke about the possibility that there was now some unholy fish hybrid gestating in my belly. The waiter, who had doubtlessly already heard some variation of this joke nine times that evening, replied that he was not a marine biologist and therefore could neither confirm nor deny my pregnancy concerns.
Lazy Bear.
Worth it for their homemade butter alone. Sure, the food is great, of course it is. But the butter… this is a place where you actually do just want to fill up on bread.
House Of Nanking.
Been going there since before it was cool! Is it still cool anymore? I have no idea. But Noah is correct that most Chinatown restaurants are mediocre at best. House of Nanking is an exception.
Japantown in general.
Some pretty decent holes in the wall. Nothing fantastic, but decent. I lived in Japan in the mid-90s and miss it dearly. Everyone should experience at least one Hokkaido winter. SF Japantown is like methadone. Nowhere near as good as the real thing, but takes the edge off. Worth a visit just for Soko Hardware (not a restaurant, an actual hardware store) just across Post Street from the awesome brutalist concrete pagoda pavilion. If you’re serious about pruning shears and woodcraft, this is store is the promised land.
This is so thorough! My own recommendations are the Tartine Manufactory and Maykadeh (Persian restaurant). I don't live in SF, however.
One big issue about restaurants in SF is workers. For such an expensive place workers are hard to come by (you mentioned housing which is spot on).
All the servers I know lives in east Bay, but Bart closes at midnight, which makes that a big challenge.
When you do get over to SoMa, make sure to check out Hamburguesa Bar—relatively cheap, fun vibes, and, most importantly, a great burger. Nothing better than leaving the office early and grabbing a burger and a beer at the bar. Their sister restaurant Pie Punks is down the street, the pizza is good (if not amazing) but the vibe is fun and sometimes that makes up for food that may merely be "very good".
Thanks! Burger places are one category I haven't really explored yet!
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